WASHINGTON – A busy December set a record for the number of migrant parents and children taken into custody, as U.S. border agents arrested 27,518 members of “family units,” according to the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics obtained by The Washington Post.

Overall, authorities detained 60,782 migrants attempting to enter the United States without authorization. It marked the third consecutive month that the figure – the most widely-used barometer of border trends – topped 60,000, remaining near the highest levels of the Trump presidency.

President Donald Trump cited the soaring numbers during his prime-time address Tuesday, urging Democrats to approve his $5.7 billion border wall plan, calling the arrival of so many families as a “crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul.”

A Honduran migrant carries Jired Melendez, 4 years-old, as they try to cross over the U.S. border wall to San Diego, California, from Tijuana, Mexico, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2018.Moises Castillo/AP

In December, U.S. agents struggled to cope with the family surge, as Border Patrol holding cells filled with youngsters and became miserably crowded and unhealthy. Two Guatemalan children died after being taken into custody, prompting Department of Homeland Security officials to declare a “humanitarian and national security crisis.”

With a partial government shutdown over Trump’s wall demands grinding on, Homeland Security officials have proposed $800 million in emergency funds to improve conditions for migrant families in custody, including child-appropriate processing centers, more doctors and better food.

There have been signs that the migration surge has abruptly receded in recent days. Border stations and shelters that were at crisis levels in late December are seeing a sudden drop in the number of families arriving in the past week, according to lawmakers and charity groups.

El Paso’s largest migrant shelter, for instance, said it has been receiving fewer than half the number of people it was taking in late December.

A migrant from Honduras holds his daughter while Border Patrol Officers look at them before they jump the border fence to get into the U.S. side to San Diego, Calif., from Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019.Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP

The change has perplexed Homeland Security officials, while providing a minor reprieve for frustrated U.S. border agents required to work without pay through the shutdown. U.S. officials say they are bracing for the numbers to spike again after the holiday season.

The shift also alleviates some of the overcrowding at border stations. The deaths of the two children last month in CBP custody were the first of such incidents in a decade, Homeland Security officials said.

Jakelin Caal, 7, died in an El Paso children’s hospital on Dec. 8, a little more than a day after she and her father arrived at a remote border outpost in New Mexico.

Migrants run as tear gas is thrown by U.S. Border Protection officers to the Mexican side of the border fence after they climbed the fence to get to San Diego, Calif., from Tijuana, Mexico, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019.Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP

According to CBP, the hospital that treated Caal said she died of dehydration, shock and liver failure, but an autopsy on the child has not been finalized, and her father has disputed the government’s version of what happened. He has insisted his daughter was healthy before they were taken into custody.

Another Guatemalan child, 8-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonso, died on Christmas Eve in New Mexico after he and his father spent six days in Border Patrol holding cells jammed with other migrants. The boy tested positive for influenza-B, but his final cause of death also remains under investigation.

While family groups continued crossing in greater volume, the number of minors who arrived without a parent last month fell 10 per cent to 4,766, the latest figures show.

The majority of migrants taken into custody now are either parents with children or underage minors traveling alone, and the Trump administration says U.S. laws intended to protect vulnerable groups are creating incentives for migrants to bring children on the dangerous journey north.

In addition to the border wall funding demand, the Trump administration is pushing to end court-imposed limits on the amount of time children can be held in government detention, as well as changes to anti-trafficking laws that would expedite the deportation of minors.

Smuggling organizations in Central America have been offering discounted rates to migrant parents who bring children, because they can bring them to the U.S. border but do not need to sneak them across it.

The families are typically dropped off near the border, then directed to walk across and surrender to U.S. agents, allowing them to initiate the asylum process. Most families are assigned a court date and released from detention after a few days.

And while U.S. officials are imposing daily limits on the number of migrants allowed to apply for asylum at the busiest border crossings, families crossing in remote rural areas face no wait times.

A Mexican migrant holds her baby as she is taken on custody by Border Patrol officers after they jumped the border fence to get into the U.S. side to San Diego, Calif., from Tijuana, Mexico, Saturday, Dec. 29, 2018.Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP

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